A taste of 60's Europe tonight with one of the major players in the "ye`-ye`" movement, France Gall. Gall, like her compatriot Francoise Hardy epitomized all that was sexy and engaging about French Girl Singers of the 1960's. On the one hand there was the fresh-faced and breathless innocence of their appearance, while on the other hand there was the sly and darkly charged message of their songs made for an unbeatable combination and a long and enduring genre in popular music in France. Some of it translated, though not very well, to American audiences. Hardy did an album in English which wasn't met with success. From a commercial standpoint, Ye`-Ye` was best left as the sole property of the French and singers like France Gall have become indelibly stamped with the genre.

Tonight it's a single released in 1964. Laisse Tomber Les Filles was a big hit for Gall. Loosely translated it means "Leave The Girls Alone" and it was composed by another French icon, Serge Gainsbourg. It's typical of the ye`-ye` genre; an upbeat mood with a dark tone. It's been recorded a number of times by a number of other artists - but this was the hit version.

(Telephone - huge in Europe. Over here? Well . . . )

I recently ran across a French Radio station online (Oui FM, which you should check out) that plays some fascinating stuff - old and new - French and non-French. During one of their sets they slipped in Dure Limite by the French punk/post-punk/new wave/hard rock group Telephone. They were enormous in France and throughout Europe in the late 1970s up to 1986, when they disbanded and went separate ways. They hardly made a dent in the States (again, that language thing), but I remembered the band pretty well, having been familiar with them since their first album, but I really hadn't played anything by them, or heard anything about them until the other day when Dure Limite came on. Not a massive seller at the time, it was produced by Bob Ezrin, who was responsible for a lot of memorable albums in the 70s - Doctor John and Peter Gabriel are two that come to mind. According to a website, the band did reunite in 2003. But what has happened since then is a mystery.

Still, it's nice to be reminded of the not-so-obvious 80s every once in a while.